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The OpenSuse FAQ touched me in a bad place
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| I consider enthusiatically supporting a company that calls your underlying
| community a “cancer” to be a “sell out”. I consider promoting Microsoft
| technologies to the direct detriment of competing Free and Open Source
| technologies to be a “sell out”. The “clear conditions” and “few specific
| areas” are irrelevant. The question of “selling out” is very much a
| subjective one, because it requires one to make a value judgment based on
| actions. And that’s about as far as you can go with the arguement on whether
| Novell “sold out” or not - do you think they did? (Hint: the answer is yes.)
|
| And “fierce competitors”? Please. Microsoft has two major development
| platforms it wants deployed right now: .NET and Silverlight. Novell is doing
| everything it can to spread both of them wherever it can.
|
| [...]
|
| Well, I don’t know what you mean by “pushing”. I do know that:
|
| * Miguel de Icaza thinks OOXML is “superb”, superior to ODF, called
| criticism of it “FUD”, considers ISO approval was a good thing, and so on
| [1] [2] [3].
| * Novell announced that the “Novell edition of the OpenOffice.org office
| productivity suite” would support OOXML very early in the game [1]
|
| These could be construed as “pushing” OOXML. Be careful now: the argument
| that OOXML support - now, after approval - is needed is not relevant. The
| problem is that when the discussion was started, and OOXML was proposed
| specificially to counter ODF, Novell stood firmly behing Microsoft.
|
| The reason people think Novell is “pushing” OOXML, even if technically Novell
| recomments ODF, is because most people judge by actions, not words. Novell
| has taken a lot of action to support (”push”) OOXML. ODF? Not so much.
|
| It also provides me an opening to touch on my favorite pet peeve: just
| because someone disagrees with you, does not mean the message is “FUD“. If
| someone is laying out a reasoned argument - it is not “FUD”, no matter how
| much you might disagree with the premise or conclusion. It doesn’t mean you
| agree with someone’s argument, but you don’t just get to dismiss legitimite
| criticism by calling it “FUD”. Let me help you out:
|
| This is FUD: “Linux infringes on 235 Microsoft patents.” “Linux is a cancer.“
| This is not
|
| [...]
|
| Here we have the FAQ that caused me to write this entry; I won’t use openSUSE
| precisely because it is “sponsored” by Novell - and so, according to the
| FAQ - I am being clearly ignorant and being absurd.
|
| First, the easy pickings: Tomboy/F-Spot/Banshee/Beagle, etc. - no I don’t use
| any of those because I won’t have mono on any of my machines. I dare say most
| people that disagree with the Novell/Microsoft deal don’t use mono. (And
| here’s the thing: I don’t care if someone wants to use them - I just don’t
| think they should be included by default in some many distros. But the key to
| gaining mindshare is to have your products on the desktop, and that’s why
| Novell pushes so hard to get these things included in the default GNOME and
| so on.)
|
| [...]
|
| As I mentioned in another blog post Novell’s relationship with openSUSE is
| not one of “mere sponsorship”:
|
| * openSUSE is a trademark of Novell
| * openSUSE EULA is was a “Novell Software License Agreement” [I see this
| has changed for the new release.]
| * openSUSE is promoted as “openSUSE from Novell” on Novell’s own website
| * The openSUSE site is copyrighted by Novell.
| * The openSUSE “Community Board” is lead by a Novell-appointed chairman,
| and must contain a majority of Novell employees.
|
| [...]
|
| In a way, this speaks to the heart of the matter: Microsoft has been
| hell-bent on destroying Open Source for a long, long time - and still Novell
| gets into bed with them. Limiting the discussion to patent issues attempts to
| obscure the fact that Novell is enthusiastically pushing Microsoft technology
| into the Open Source ecosystem as hard as it can. Patents may be one part of
| the issue, and an important one - but the larger issue to me is embracing an
| anti-Free Software company like Microsoft.
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http://meandubuntu.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/the-opensuse-faq-touched-me-in-a-bad-place/
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